This Cocktail Was Once as Popular as the Martini. And Then It Disappeared.

In the cocktail renaissance of the last decade, many classics have been exhumed, polished, and updated for modern palates. Some have taken hold and are now as common on bar menus across the country as the gin-and-tonic. The Bijou is not one of them.

Which is a shame—the drink has a bright sweetness up front that soon gives way to a velvety mouthfeel and wonderfully complex bold herbal and bitter notes on the back end. The original 19th-Century recipe for the Bijou—which calls for equal parts gin, sweet vermouth, and green chartreuse (a sweet, herbal, and pungent liquor with a high alcohol content that has been produced for centuries by French monks), a dash of orange bitters, a twist of a lemon peel over the glass before discarding it, and a cherry—embodied a new direction for cocktails. "Beginning in the early 1880s, American bartenders, seeking to cater to a more sophisticated, cosmopolitan clientele, turned to vermouth and other European aperitifs, digestifs, and cordials to broaden the range of colors on their palettes," says David Wondrich, cocktail author, historian, and longtime Esquire contributor. "These proved to be the keystone that capped the structure of the classic mixologist's craft."

Advertisement - Continue Reading Below

Fun Fact: Broadway's original Bijou Theater opened in 1880 on the site of what had been a bar run by perhaps the era's most well-known bartender, Jerry Thomas. It even used the layout of the bar as the basis for its design.

The Bijou had a decades-long run of popularity. But while its famous contemporaries, the Manhattan and the martini, continued to thrive post Prohibition, the Bijou—perhaps because it was never updated to reflect evolving tastes—faded into obscurity with only weathered cocktail-recipe books serving as proof it ever existed.

Most Popular

POLISHING OFF AN OLD JEWEL

While updating his bar menu at New York City's Rainbow Room in the 1980s, legendary bartender Dale DeGroff stumbled upon a recipe for the Bijou in Harry Johnson's Bartenders' Manual (1900).

While the green chartreuse provides the Bijou—which translates to "jewel" in French—with a boldness that is the drink's defining characteristic, the original specs were "too sweet and a bit overpowering," says DeGroff. "I wanted a drier and subtler drink that didn't bang me over the head with Chartreuse and vermouth—both complex powerful flavors on top of the complexity of the gin—it was all too much."

In the cocktail renaissance of the last decade, many classics have been exhumed, polished, and updated for modern palates. The Bijou is not one of them.

DeGroff decided to triple the ratio of gin to vermouth and chartreuse, which softened the taste profile. His updated take—part of his regular rotation for decades and now published in his book, The Essential Cocktail: The Art of Mixing Perfect Drinks (2008)— wasn't immediately embraced ("it was still a bit too esoteric," he thinks), but he liked its "complexity and flavor nuances." And eventually his recipe became the industry standard.

"I prefer Dale's recipe because I think our collective palate—or at least, my own—has become a bit drier and veers towards the more gin-forward," says Justin Lane Briggs, "Ambassador of Booze" for Skurnik Wines + Spirits. "The Chartreuse is such a powerful ingredient, it's in no danger of being washed away…and the vermouth still rounds the game out and brightens the drink up remarkably."

BIJOU

Ingredients:

1.5 oz gin (preferably Plymouth)

0.5 oz sweet vermouth

0.5 oz green chartreuse

1 dash, orange bitters

Lemon peel

Cherry or olive for garnish

Instructions:

Add all the ingredients, except the lemon peel and garnish, to a mixing glass. Fill with ice and stir until chilled. Strain into a cocktail glass. Twist the lemon peel over the glass to express the oils and discard. Garnish with the cherry or olive.

THE TAILSPIN

Backstory: Although Tailspin recipes exist from as far back as the 1930s, they are exactly the same as the one for the original Bijou. This one, uncovered and popularized by Robert Hess, uses a Campari rinse. (Feel free to leave a bit of it in the glass.)

Nola Lopez

Ingredients:

Campari rinse

1.5 oz gin (preferably Beefeater)

1 oz sweet vermouth (preferably Carpano Antica)

1 oz green chartreuse

1 dash orange bitters

Lemon twist, for garnish

Instructions:

Rinse a coupe with Campari and discard, then stir the rest of the ingredients over ice and strain into the coupe. Garnish with a lemon twist.